Unfriended? – Remaining Relevant in Social Media

A good friend of mine recently asked me a key question related to social media and the use of it that I had to share. As he was asking the question, I began to think about the content we use, re-purpose and re-tweet (RT). He said although most of what he reads is interesting, he wonders, “Is there a ‘line’ that social media experts have for duplicate information? At some point, do people begin to ignore tweets and status updates because often content is duplicated in multiple locations?”

We all like to post bits of information, re-purpose and re-tweet interesting things from reliable sources, and at the same time we strive to increase our network of personal and professional ‘followers and friends.’ How do we continue to do this effectively, while at the same time, have our content remain relevant to each target audience? The last thing any of us wants is to be ignored or even worse unfriended, unfollowed or blocked.

My Facebook friend list is filled with people who know me on a personal level and people I do business with. I am followed on Twitter by friends, associates, colleagues, as well as people who simply find my content interesting. Similar situations exist for LinkedIn, ActiveRain, and other social networking sites. The challenge (and the art of social networking) is balancing the two so that the information published in all places is not simply ‘ignored’ by your friends because it is work related or ‘perceived inappropriate’ by your colleagues and business contacts, while at the same time carefully re-purposing information from other people.

The answer I gave him is pretty simple…just like other business and marketing directives, you have to have a clear strategy for each site, know who the target audience is and define how they are interrelated. Are your tweets set up to feed your Facebook status and post to your blog? Is your Facebook status set to tweet and post to your blog? When you post, tweet or update, how many places does it actually appear and is it feeding the proper audience? Is it the same message everywhere or are you simply trying to deliver too many messages? These are only a few initial questions you need to ask yourself when determining your social media strategy, but the key is to sit down and create and define your strategy.

Take Away: Avoid becoming irrelevant with a carefully crafted social media strategy. Define your goals and identify your audiences for each site, then determine how your sites interrelate.